


Simple Tasks

by Oparu



Series: Shards and Fairy Tales [2]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/F, Mirror Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-10
Updated: 2011-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-14 15:36:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/pseuds/Oparu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beverly Howard, a Terran resistance fighter, engineers a plot to kidnap Kathryn Janeway, a Terran scientist who belongs to the Klingon-Cardassian alliance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Simple Tasks

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely based on DS9's Mirror Universe

Death is easy. A knife, a disruptor, a poisoned piece of meat, a rope around your neck- all the living you've done, everything you've seen and experienced and want and believe, gone. It goes with you, vanishing in the same instant your brain stops working.

Beverly can tell you when that instant is. She didn't go to medical school, who bothers to teach a Terran anything? Unless they are born into slavery and pass the intelligence screenings, Terrans are chattel, things to be traded and used and forgotten about when they wear out like old boots. Who knows, she might have passed if her parents weren't already running, and half dead by the time they reached the fringes. Out on the far edge of space, way out near the outer rim, no one cares who you are if you have the latinum.

Her father didn't have enough. He went back, and he's here, somewhere, probably dust in the mines. Her mother lived a little longer, and Beverly remembers her in that vague, childhood way. Her mother was beautiful and she loved her very much. It's like something she'd write down, to try to remember. Her mother was beautiful and she loved her very much. It's a story. Something about another life, long ago.

Glancing at the report again, the one she keeps reading at her elbow, she notes that Kathryn Janeway, Intendant Ro's favourite little scientist, passed her first intelligence screen at age seven, earning the right for her father to be released from the mines. When she passed the second, she saved her sister, who became a Terran houseslave. Houseslaves can work their way up to concubines, and it's a better life than the mines. Concubines sleep warm and dry at night.

Janeway hasn't seen her family in years. She must trust blindly, as all chosen little Terrans do, that her family is safe. This is the official report, the Alliance version of events. Edward Janeway does simple strategic planning for a Terran refuge camp. He's a level A administrator. He might have a tent. Phoebe is based on Andoria. The weather is terrible, but she belongs to Klingons rather than Cardassians. Cardassians find the cruel pleasurable, while Klingons are simply boisterous, loud and crude. The sister might be alive.

Tom might know. It's possible they travel the same circles. Beverly reminds herself to ask him and connects the detonator.

Bombs are easy too. It's the work of an afternoon to kill a handful of people, funny how it's the work of weeks to nurse one back to health.

It's a harsh plan, but it's a harsh universe. Kathryn, pretty little Doctor Janeway with her unmarred face and innocent eyes, has no idea how harsh it is. If she knew the Alliance, really knew them, she'd slit Ro's throat the next chance she had.

Too bad that's not in the plan. Beverly would enjoy seeing the blood run down Ro's tight black uniform.

She bites the last wire, resorting to stripping the coating with her teeth when her knife is to dull. Spitting polymer into the dust on the floor, Beverly finishes the connection. It's a simple explosive, remote activated, unimpressive yield. A bigger one would cause more death than chaos, and there may be innocents.

Innocents isn't her word. Innocence is something long gone, that of children who answer questions because they know they're going to get a treat. A Little boy who doesn't know to stop talking about warp fields and subspace before the Klingons decide that he might just be worth more than the few strips of latinum it'll cost to clean him up and put him in school. Beverly grabs a rag and wipes away every trace that she was working, letting the motion pull her back to reality.

Wesley is gone. Whatever intelligence his no-good pirate father passed on to him was too much for Beverly to control. She couldn't keep him quiet, and he's been gone ten years. The last anyone heard, and Tom's sources are usually the most reliable, no one lies breathless in bed, Wesley was assigned to special projects, research and development on Quo'Nos itself.

It would be easier if her son was dead. They probably tell him the same lies they tell Kathryn. _Your mother lives a good life because of you. She has a house and a garden._ How old would he be now? Fifteen? Sixteen? Somehow the not remembering is easier than knowing how many years it's been since she's held him. He's probably taller than she is.

Beverly drags herself back to the task at hand, memorising what she needs to know. Kathryn's mother is dead, worn out by another pregnancy too close to the sister, a stillborn boy and a lifetime of going without. That she understands, so she can exploit it. Take care of her, make her feel safe, remind her what it was like to have a mother look after her needs. It's a game, like the ones Chakotay plays to keep Seska amused, or the ones Tom employs to keep himself in B'Elanna's bed.

No different than Harry, and his music. She can play this. She can convince Kathryn to trust her, to listen to her and do what they need her to do. They won't hurt her, and she'll be better off with them and their lies than the Alliance and their prejudice. At least with them, Kathryn will see some of the truth: the price of any bargain with the Alliance, no matter the reward, is suffering greater than anyone can imagine. For every Edward who survives to eek out a living, a hundred Gretchens die from malnutrition. It's a numbers game, and Kathryn's never seen the score. Beverly's not sure if she hates or envies that naivete.

Beverly tucks the bomb inside her jacket, pulling her scarf tighter around her face. Best not to be seen. Just another slave, walking through just another market for her Alliance masters.  
ZZZZ

Kathryn walks through the crowd as if she doesn't understand how much she stands out. Her clothing is clean and fits well. Even her Terran badge, marking her as a lesser life form, is clean and neatly pinned to her chest. Everything about her, from her tight bun of auburn hair to her black, well polished boots, is neat and new. She looks like a newly minted piece of latinum: one that hasn't been nibbled and gnawed as people prove its worth.

Taking a last look at that unmarred face, Beverly forces down the pang of guilt as she watches Kathryn's eyes. Losing any kind of virginity stings, and this has the kind of poetry as the first footprints across a snow-covered field. She's taking something away from this woman, something she lost so long ago, she can't even remember that flash of pain. Beverly presses the trigger, and hell rises from her bomb to engulf the square. She looks away from the flames, needing her eyes, and her ear protection saves her from the blast.

She still feels it, nothing short of a forcefield would have kept that blast from slamming into her chest. She breathes into it, opening as it hits so she can loose the air in her lungs without bursting them. Even shut, her eyes flash with colour and light. She's rent the square open, brought chaos and death to the market, and it only took a second. It's over before she crushes the detonator under her boot.

Setting it off just as the Alliance guards passed the stall was good timing. Both the Cardassians seem to be dead, and the collaborator shopkeeper is spilling her green Orion blood onto the ground next to them. The alarms begin to wail and Beverly has just moments to find Kathryn and steal her away. Kathryn crouches in the corner, eyes wide and white with terror, hands gripping the fragile cover that does seem to have protected her. The smell of sulphur and flame covers up the scent of blood, but she'll be wounded, shrapnel should have seen to that. Beverly grabs her; Kathryn's hands dig into her arms like Wesley's did, once, a lifetime ago when he'd heard the screams across the camp when the Cardassians took someone away.

Terror is a malleable thing. A tool that the Alliance uses to keep down the subjugate species. Even the Romulans fell to them, and yoked with terror, the races who once built great empires, are the slaves of this cycle. Who knows how it will be next time around.

Kathryn's ears are ringing, and tears leave pale tracks on her dusty face. She's terrified, half-broken by fear, and Beverly aches for bringing her to this point. It's not difficult to be kind to her. Beverly forgets what it's like to take away suffering when she spends too much time having to cause it. Her fingers run over Kathryn's injuries, soothing them away. Resistance medicine is crude and backwater: they have no tricorders and laser sutures but someone it's more intimate. To heal her, Beverly has to touch her, rubbing in the extracts of carefully cultivated roots and herbs.

What is it Tuvok says? _The rendering of pain is a far lesser thing than the rendering of it inert._ Vulcans, soft-hearted poetic bastards: no wonder they lost. Terrans are no better. They're a rabble that would just as soon kill themselves for their own advancement. At least, most of the time, Vulcans don't kill their own.

Calling her pretty startles poor Kathryn, and that look, the one Beverly's been submitted to intensely while she cleans Kathryn's wounds, follows her like a child's eyes. It's disconcerting and Beverly has to smile to hide her own fear.

"Where are we going?"

It's a simple question from the great genius. Maybe Beverly overdid the yield on the bomb. They need Kathryn's mind intact.

"We're going to look for a fairy tale."

That answer just brings confusion to Kathryn's face, and Beverly strokes her cheek, calming her.

"Somewhere safe, " she pauses, maybe it's time for a little truth. "Somewhere we might be safe for awhile. You know that harem of the Intendant's?"

Kathryn's eyes widen again with shock, and she blushes faintly.

"One of the rewards of service is a certain amount of freedom."

Beverly reaches for Kathryn's hand, and inclines her head towards the doorway.

"Stay with me, don't look up."

Kathryn's fingers tighten hard around her own, and Beverly squeezes back just enough to be comforting. She has overdone it; she thought she might. The poor woman's probably never seen death, or an explosion, and none of the skin Beverly's seen has any scars. She's a demon, taking Kathryn's soul and teaching her the darkness of life. Is it enough if she saves her from death? If this invented bit of suffering keeps millions more safe?

It might be. It is a numbers game, after all.

If Kathryn can help them find the ghost fleet, if they can make those decrepit old ships run, the resistance might have a chance to be more than back alley terrorists and secret-trading concubines, held together by pirates and thugs who've escaped the minds.

Some fairy tales, like freedom, have to be true.

Beverly leads her through a tunnel, passing under the market, where the caverns crawl with insects and nocturnal creatures. She can't even name them, but Beverly meant it when she warned Kathryn not to look up. The scrabbling, crawling darkness on the ceiling is enough to make anyone go mad. They make it out, crawling out into the weak ends of daylight like miners finding air. Kathryn's shaking, her adrenaline is starting to wear off, and before she can think her way into doing it, Beverly hugs her.

It would be the right thing to do, if Beverly had done it consciously, hugging her without thought, holding this body close to her chest without reason is dangerous.

Emotions are unpredictable and that which can't be predicted, can't be contained. Caring is the one thing Beverly doesn't have the strength to do. Vulnerability means death out here, and Beverly still has so much to do.

Yet she's here, holding Kathryn's head against her chest and whispering that she's safe, that she's all right, that somehow the people Beverly's about to deliver her to will protect her. Concubines, musicians, pirates and slaves: they're a motley crew without a hero in the lot.

They needed a genius and they chose Kathryn. Perhaps she hate them if she knew. Maybe the hand clutching Beverly's arm would slap her. Beverly would almost rather it ended that way. Beverly would almost rather it ended that way. Hatred is easy: it keeps you warm. The other emotions, the ones fighting for dominance in her gut, those are the scary ones.

Beverly eases Kathryn's head up from her chest, taking her hands and rubbing them between Beverly's own.

"It's all right. I shook like a baby and vomited after my first bomb."

Kathryn doesn't have to know that Beverly's first bomb killed eighteen people, even if they were mostly Cardassians.

"You kept your lunch down," Beverly reminds her. "You're doing far better than I did."

"Thank you." Kathryn licks her lips, trying to clear what must be a dry throat. "I don't know what I would have done..."

And here's the precipice again. The dark, yawning void where Beverly chooses between the truth, and what they need to survive.

"You would have been fine."

The Alliance would have picked her up, reminded her how dangerous and violent her own species is and kept her locked up in safety for the rest of her natural life. Maybe Beverly's lies aren't so terrible. In the end, when this is over, if- when- Kathryn hates her, she'll have a whole universe full of the Alliance on whom to vent her wrath, and fleet of ghost ships to bear it.

Beverly strokes her hair, tucking a piece of it back, away from Kathryn's face.

"You're stronger than you think."

Kathryn smiles, a flash of honest light in the dimness of half-truths and secrets. "I don't feel like it."

"Sometimes power is like love. You never know what you have until you see what you've done with it."

Now steady, calmed, Kathryn's still within reach, too close to be anything less than intimate. Beverly was keenly aware of that when she talked about love. Mention the word enough, put the thought in the target's head: she can hear Chakotay's advice in her mind.

Loyalty can be earned, but it's hard to cultivate. Love on the other hand, grows in even the harshest soil.

"Come," Beverly points down a corridor, further into the darkness. "My family will give you somewhere to stay."

"I should go back." Kathryn's protest is genuine, but half-hearted. Something took root and she feels it as much as Beverly fears it.

"Through that tunnel, left, right at the next fork, and activate your transponder." Beverly explains it quickly, as if taking too much time would hurt her. "If you hurry, the Intendant will still be looking for you. If you take your time--"

"I'm a traitor."

"Or you're dead."

There were humans there, not many, but enough for a molecular scanner to confirm that Kathryn may have died. The Intendant would miss the use of her mind, but she'll replace Kathryn easily enough. If there isn't a scientist waiting, she could always breed one. Humans reproduce with little difficulty. She'll choose one of her favourites and breed him with a houseslave. Maybe even a concubine. Seska, the Inquisitor, finds Chakotay useful for that often enough.

"The Intendant will think I'm dead?" Kathryn's shock fades and she realises the truth Beverly's been praying for. "My family, they'll be safe if I'm dead. It's not my fault, my contract--"

"Allows that acts of terrorism are not the fault of the Terran, and Alliance obligations will be honoured in that case." One of the only ways out of an Alliance contract is death. It's an odd cultural artefact of the warlike Klingons and the detail-oriented Cardassians.

"You know Terran service contracts?"

Oddly enough, Beverly thought this part would be hard. _Tell her about your son, Chakotay insisted. Empathise, be gentle, connect with her._ She thought she'd have to fake her emotional response, stammer her speech so she sounded upset. She had no idea her throat would actually close.

"My son signed one." Truth hurts most of all, even old ones. "I had to help him read it, because he didn't know all of the words."

Kathryn pales, like she's been hit with another shockwave. Maybe she is about to vomit, after all.

"How old--?"

Her eyes are traitors, filling with stinging tears even though Beverly puts every bit of will she has into forcing them dry.

"He was five."

"Five--"

Beverly turns away, letting her feet carry her back to her resistance cell, the closest thing she has left to family.

Kathryn, of course, follows behind. When she catches up with Beverly, understanding and sympathy written all over her beautiful face, she touches her shoulder.

The connection's forged.

All Beverly had to was blow up Kathryn's world and suck her down into hell, like the rest of her species. Simple.


End file.
